The rest of the week at school wasn't so hot.
There was some bright spots. People had finally accepted my new form, and there wasn't any more squeeing or petting. Though that did mean I would get less attention, I personally preferred little attention over embarrassing attention. I managed to do all the work in my classes fine, as well.
I had also managed, by this point, to successfully control my thundershock attacks. Doing them was nearly natural for me, all I had to do was just try to focus my mind on it. I was very happy that I was able to do this, it helped erase a lot of the fear from my mind that a repeat of what had happened a few days before would happen again.
However, word had spread about the thundershocking incident. Someone had filmed the incident, and uploaded it to Youtube under the name "PIKACHU KID USES THUNDERSHOCK (REAL) (NOT FAKE)". Though the school took the original video down, people had already snatched it themselves, and it circulated throughout the web. The effects of this I definitely felt, and not in a good way. I noticed that many people had become somewhat afraid of me. Sometimes, when I would walk down the halls, or try to strike up a conversation with somebody that wasn't a friend, people would walk away from me, seemingly afraid that i'd thundershock them too. A few particularly mean kids even insulted me over it, calling me a "monster". The behavior people exhibited towards me over this depressed me. It was merely an accident. I hoped that it could blow over soon.
Back on the lighter side of things, did have something to look forwards too. I had successfully booked a benefit concert, to be held outdoors in a nearby park. All proceeds from it would go to the charity fund for "Pokeitis". This was the chance I had been waiting for, the chance for me to prove if my dreams could still come true. On the next Saturday, me, Scott, Matt, and Dan headed towards my garage, to rehearse for this occasion.
Rehearsals started rocky. All four of us had issues to deal with and fix.
Matt's small size made him unable to even reach his head beyond the drum hit, let alone play it. Whenever he tried to pick up the drum sticks they would be too heavy.
Both Dan and Scott struggled to figure out how to play their instruments, bass and guitar respectively, without fingers. It was very hard to grip the picks with this. As well, their size was another hurdle. Sometimes when they tried to wear the instruments around their shoulders, they'd fall down because it was too heavy for them.
And as for me, my issues were similar. My fingers were very tiny, and thus it was hard for me to press the right keys on the keyboard. As well, my voice sounded quite a bit higher, while this did allow me to hit higher notes easier than ever, it sounded pretty ridiculous at times.
These problems would plague our early rehearsals, which didn't go very well at all. We struggled through song after song, missing more notes than a kid rushing through his reading annotations (okay that was a bit of a clumsy analogy but I hope you get my point?) We sounded just as bad as the bullies had said earlier, and I was reminded of their harsh comments.
By this point I was getting really worried. Did this mean that my dreams of being a musician were over? Would we have to shill Apple products, like the bullies said to me earlier? I started to get discouraged, and worried that what they said would be right.
But I wasn't ready to give up yet. The performances may have started out poorly, but we could improve. There had to be solutions! We just hadn't thought of them yet.
In fact, the solutions were hiding right in front of our faces, and we just didn't think about them.
When Matt was struggling through a particularly tricky drum part, he accidentally hit his drumstick at an angle that resulted in it snapping in two. I first thought that we'd have to get a replacement, but as it turned out, the lightened weight caused by that actually helped. He was able to play the drums much easier using that one. Realizing that it could help out, we managed to snap his other stick in two. Now with a much lighter load, he was able to drum almost as well as before. The height problem was also fixed, as we managed to find a different stool, with a tall extension, allowing Matt to be able to see the drums.
Dan and Scott ditched the picks, playing the guitar and bass with their own bare hands. After practicing for an hour or so, they finally managed to work out playing with their paws. They also decided to stop wearing their instruments around their shoulders, instead holding them. With those two changes made, they were ready to play well.
And finally, though playing keyboard with my small paws was hard at first, I eventually managed to get used to it, and was able to play as well as I ever could. The voice problem couldn't be fixed, of course, but we decided to fill the set with songs mainly in the upper registers, that would allow the problem to become less apparent.
We were ready to rock and roll.
